WASHINGTON — The U.S. Supreme Court on Thursday allowed New Hampshire to stop accepting student IDs as a backup form of voter identification in next month’s elections, the Associated Press reported.
The justices granted an emergency appeal backed by Republicans and set aside a lower-court order that had blocked state guidance banning the IDs. The court pointed to a long-standing principle that judges should avoid changing voting rules close to an election.
Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson was the only justice to dissent publicly.
New Hampshire passed a law this year removing student IDs from the list of accepted identification for getting a ballot. The secretary of state then told election officials not to accept them as a fallback either. A judge left the law in place but blocked that guidance in early October. The Republican National Committee supported the state’s appeal.
The ruling comes less than two weeks before New Hampshire voters decide a closely watched U.S. Senate race.
Sources: Associated Press via KTAR News. Thee Arizona Times uses AI-assisted reporting reviewed against the sources listed.
Photo: AlexiusHoratius / CC BY-SA 3.0 via Wikimedia Commons.
